KOSPI Sprints Higher While KOSDAQ Steps Back

Right now the KOSPI sits at 6,509.42, up 2.58%, and it's been building on that gain all morning. That's 1.85 points sharper than where my last brief caught it, so the move has clearly picked up speed — and with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both closing lower overnight, KOSPI is pretty much going its own way today. With foreigners and institutions buying side by side, a headline about cosmetics stocks having a strong morning looks like one thread behind the push. KOSDAQ is doing the opposite though — foreigners sold ₩356.2bn, institutions another ₩95.4bn, dragging it down 0.49% and 0.88 points softer than my last check, like money's rotating out of small caps into the big names. The won slipped 0.73% to 1,417.31 while the dollar index barely budged, so this reads as a won-specific move, and what I'm watching into the close is whether that KOSPI-KOSDAQ gap keeps widening.